i87o] CHARLES ITS JUG 17

projecting and high-gabled porch. There was a stir ahout tbe house
and yard. They had killed a fat stall-fed heifer yesterday and a party
of people much interested in the matter, among them old Jones
and his wife, were busy cutting up the carcase in the barn. A man
went to and fro from the bam to the house with huge joints of beef
having first weighed them on the great steelyard which hangs at the
barn door. In the house Mrs, Jones of New Building an old
daughter of the house was engaged in the great kitchen taking up

into an inner room or larder to put them in salt. By the fire sat a
young woman who hid her face and did not look up. She had a baby
lying across her lap.

I decided to explore the lane running parallel with the brook
towards Painscastle and discover the old Rhos -Goch Mill. There
was a good deal of water and suddenly I came upon the mill pond
and the picturesque old mill with an overshot wheel. I crossed one
of the streams on a larch felled across the water for a bridge and came
back round tbe front of the cosy old picturesque ivy-grown mill
house with its tall chimney completely covered with ivy. A hand-
some young man with a fine open face, fresh complexion and
dressed as a miller was having a romp with a little girl before the
door. He said his name was Powell, his father was dead and he
carried on the business and with the most perfect politeness and
well bred courtesy asked me to come in and sit down. So this is
the place that I have heard old Hannah Whitney talk of so often,
the place where the old miller sleeping in the mill trough used to see
the fairies dancing of nights upon the mill floor.

At Rhos Goch Lane House no one was at home so I stuck an ivy
leaf into the latch hole.

Round the corner of the Vicar's Hill to Cefii y Blaen where I
found Davies, the new tenant of the Pentre. While talking to Davies
outside I heard old William Pritchard within coughing violently.
I went in and sat some time talking to him and his niece Mrs. Evans.
He remembers the old house of Cefh y Blaen and the large famous
room which he says was 20 yards long and was used for holding a
Court of Justice in for the country round in the time of Charles II.
I asked him if he had ever heard any talk of Charles n ever having
been about in this country. 'Oh yes,* he said, 1 have a jug that the
King once drunk out of at Blaen cerdL He had breakfast that day